


Escape the Fall

by Selador



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: BAMF Prompto, Competent Prompto, Dad!Cor, Gen, Insomnia, Non-Graphic Violence, Prompto Doesn't Join the Crownsguard AU, at the end at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 20:57:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13598238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selador/pseuds/Selador
Summary: Prompto never joined the Crownsguard, so he, like many otheres, have to escape Insomnia when it falls.





	Escape the Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rinny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinny/gifts).



> fill for a prompto from @abelarded: "Prompto didn't get trained and so couldn't go to Altissia with Noct - but when Insomia fell, dad!Cor went to get him."
> 
> dad!cor only shows up at the end, and most of this is competent prompto porn. a LOT of competent prompto, since this fill go out of hand enough that it deserves being posted here whoops
> 
> at some point i'll make a series for all of my fills here on ao3 so they'll all be posted and in one place, but not today

When Insomnia falls, Prompto watches from the top of a skyscraper. He doesn’t realize what he’s seeing through his camera until the Wall is halfway disappeared, and airships are lowering down into the city proper, hundreds of MTs bleeding into the city.

He hears screams, even from up so high.

He hears gunfire and explosions.

 _I’ve got to go,_ he thinks, shoving his camera into his bag, fleeing the rooftop. But where? Insomnia’s Wall fell, and they’re being actively invaded. Where can he go?

He slows in the stairwell.

Noctis left for his trip—to get _married_ , that’s still weird—a day ago. Prompto can’t go to him for help. Along with Ignis and Gladio—

 _Wait_ . Didn’t Gladio have a little sister, who lives in the city?

 _Shit_ . The King’s Shield would be in the Citadel along with the King for peace negotiations, and now fighting, and Gladio’s gone with Noctis—

Prompto, now at least with a destination in mind, runs.

…

The streets are chaos.

The Empire doesn’t care about casualties. Not at all.

Prompto tries not to look down, but he has to, so he doesn’t accidentally step on any corpses.

(The streets are _wet._ He doesn’t think about it. Not right now.)

It takes only about a minute after he leaves the building to run into an MT scout. It sees him before he can hide, and zeroes in on his with its gun, and—Prompto rushes forward, kicks the gun out of its hands, and twists its neck around until sparks fly from its suit and it falls.

Now he has a gun, but Prompto stares in disbelief at the fallen MT.

That’s not something he knew he can do.

 _Later_ , he tells himself, _or never_. He can deal with this never.

He runs through the alleyways, shooting down MTs where and when he can, stealing new guns when his runs out of bullets. He shoots down an MT that has an aircycle, which he hops onto.

There’s gunfire _everywhere_ , but not as many MTs look up at one of their own vehicles. He makes decent time to the Amicitia household, which is practically under siege.

Prompto jumps off the aircycle, letting it crash into the soldiers, taking out enough of them that it’s easy to pick off the rest.

When they’re gone, he runs to the door. “Iris!” Prompto yells. “Iris, are you okay? It’s me, Prompto!”

“Prompto?” he hears an elderly, masculine voice say, and the door opens to show Jared, the Amicitia’s butler.

“You okay?” Prompto asks, stepping in. He helps Jared barricade the door again. “Is Iris and Talcott here?”

“They are,” Jared tells him. “They’re hiding in the basement. It’s good to see you, my boy.”

“Yeah,” Prompto says, “you too. Is there any secret way out of here?”

“Ah, that reminds me of the secret passageway we have hidden behind the bookshelf,” Jared says. “How could that have possibly slipped my mind?”

“Really?” Prompto asks, before the tone of his words, with an edge of frustrated, dry, anger sinks in. “Oh.”

Jared sighs. “Sorry. This is not—I’ve been trying to keep the children’s spirits up, and it—got the best of me.”

“It’s cool,” Prompto says. “So we need an escape plan.” The Amicitia household isn’t that near the Citadel, which is… convenient, in the case of a siege. Was that intentional, that the Shield’s home would be a distance away?

“Got a car?” Prompto asks. It’d be dangerous, but staying in Insomnia for the daughter of the Shield and his employee… that would only end badly. “If you can drive, I can shoot anything that gets in our way.”

Jared peers at him, behind his glasses. “Might be our only option,” he admits. “But—you never joined the Crownsguard, did you? Were you ever trained?”

 _No,_ Prompto never joined the Crownsguard, even though Noctis asked him to. The thought of fighting made him uneasy in a way he couldn’t describe—and now that he’s fought, he thinks he knows why. “I have a little training,” Prompto says. “We can wait until we’re rescued, but—it’s not good out there. I think we should leave quickly, before they set up blockades out of the city.”

Jared sighs, taking off his glasses to clean them. “You’re right. I just—I hope this goes well.”

There are too many ways it’ll go poorly.

“Me too,” Prompto says.

…

There is a car. A few cars, and they debate between taking the armored Crownsgaurd car that will be obvious in all of Lucis, or a non-armored, nondescript car.

“Armored would be better for escaping Insomnia,” Prompto says, “but after that, we need to be discreet.”

“Lord Amicitia knows a man in Hammerhead, by the name of Cid,” Jared says. “He runs a car shop. I’m sure we can trade this in for something less obviously Lucian Royalty when we get there.”

Prompto blows out some air, thinking. “You’re sure this Cid guy will help us?”

“Yes, I am. Cid and Lord Amicitia have always been on friendly terms. And Cid isn’t the kind of man to turn away children.” 

“Alright,” Prompto says. “Let’s do this.”

Arranging themselves take a few minutes. They make the kids lie down in the back, with a blanket over them, so they don’t get hit by stray shots or picked off while they’re trying to escape.

Iris isn’t crying, but Talcott is. “It’ll be alright, buddy,” Prompto tells him, as he makes sure the blanket covers him. “We’ll be out of here in no time.”

If only.

…

The next couple hours are the most stressful in Prompto’s life.

It’s good they took the armored car. With the amount of gunfire they experience, Jared would have been a pincushion ten minutes in without that protection.

Prompto, on the other, manages to avoid being shot by the skin of his teeth, somehow. He never knew that his eyesight and reflexes were so good, but… perhaps he never wanted to know.

But they make it to the gate before Prompto runs out of ammo entirely.

And they’ve almost finished setting up a blockade.

“Give me five minutes,” Prompto says, “I can run out, grab some guns, and—” 

“We don’t have five minutes, my boy,” Jared says, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Think I can run them down?”

There’s probably too many. Prompto thinks there’s too many. They’d get stuck in the middle of all of those MTs.

But there are explosions behind them, MTs and daemons getting closer. Because of course, the Empire let _daemons_ loose, in a mostly civilian city.

“Floor it,” Prompto says, knowing that they are going to die.

Jared floors it. “Keep your eyes closed, kids!” he calls out, as the car goes faster and faster.

Iris screams as they collide into the first few, and doesn’t stop. They’re slowing down too quickly, though. There’s too many MTs. They won’t make it past.

“Go, go, go!” Prompto yells, shoving his door open and kicking it shut, despite Jared’s shout. He doesn’t stop his roll, to the nearest MT to steal its gun and knock it down.

Then he has a gun, and even though he’s surrounded by MTs, he lifts it up, and fires to thin the way for Jared and the kids.

Jared, thankfully, speeds up, running over the few MTs left in his way.

And then he’s gone, down the road.

 _Thank the gods_ , Prompto thinks, throwing his empty gun into an MT just to steal another.

Prompto’s not going to live through this, but at least he knows he helped get someone out. Noctis and Gladio should appreciate that, at least.

He hopes Noctis is okay.

Prompto’s getting tired, his arms burning with the strain to keep a gun up, and knowing any moment, he’s going to make a misstep right into an MTs axe.

He lifts his gun, anyway, prepared to shoot down as many as possible, but before he can, the MTs are fallen and dead. Cut clean in half.

He blinks. Another fleet falls, and his eyes catch up well enough to see Cor the Immortal cutting down the MTs surrounding him.

“You okay, kid?” Cor yells at him. It takes Prompto a second to realize that he’s not only been rescued, but _Cor the Immortal_ is rescuing him.

“Ah, yes, sir!” He yells, returning to his gun. His arms still hurt, but the thought that _he’s not going to die here_ propels him past it.

When they’re clear for the moment, Cor says, “I saw Jared and Iris. They told me you helped them get out. Prompto, right?”

“Yes, sir!” Prompto says, voice going a little high.

“Thank you for doing that,” Cor says.

“I—of course, I couldn’t let them—uh, thank you too!”

Cor looks at him for a moment, but an explosion turns his eyes back to Insomnia. He scowls at it, and asks, “What’s it like inside?” 

Prompto swallows. “Bad. They, uh. There’s dead people everywhere. The Empire is—I don’t know what happened to the King. Or his Shield.”

Cor sighs. “The King is dead. Has been for five hours already.” 

_How do you know?_ Prompto is about to ask, but stops. The King’s magic. Of course. If he dies, then his soldiers all become… normal.

“Come on,” Cor says. “We’ve got to go. We can’t do anything else here.”

“Sir, what about the other people inside?” Prompto asks.

“I’ve got teams getting people out,” Cor says, “but they’re finalizing their blockades. If we’re gonna go, we have to go now.” 

“Oh,” Prompto says, nodding. He tries to lower his gun, but his hands feel locked around it. He’s not sure if he can walk right now.

“It’s okay, son,” Cor says, coming forward to peel his fingers off the gun. “You did well. Leave it to me. I’ll get us out of here.”


End file.
